Part 11: Goodbye, Gustavus!

Good, now we can swim into deep ocean and start building ships that don't suck. The Caravel is primarily an exploration ship. The Observatory can only be built if your city is right next to a mountain tile, but it boosts science by 50%, so it's pretty kickass and makes up for the lack of food from one tile.



This is all that's left of the Swedish army. My own got pretty chewed up too, so I'm having them rest and heal for a bit before pressing the final attack on Helsinki.



Goodbye, Samoa.



Ooh, handy. I'm moving him over to Cardiff to build a manufactory. Cardiff's production output frankly sucks, it needs to get with the game. Getting a Great Engineer also pleased Rio de Janero, who are giving me 2 food in the capital.



Ah, yes, when you're burning a city you are still technically in control of it, so they ask you to assign a task. Everything's question marks because it's still in Resistance after being conquered. It won't matter, in a few turns it'll be toast.



Damn right it is, Chicago Times. That second icon is the Leaning Tower, which of course Sweden already built.



Time for PIRATE SHIPS! Yar-harrr!



Hmm. Tempting…

Oh, wait, you're the guy who invaded me not once but twice, because you needed breathing room. DIE!



…on the other hand, this is too tempting to pass up. I still haven't properly sussed out how many of what she's got, because she hasn't actually moved her armies against me yet. I need to. This is a shitload of gold per turn. If, in ten turns I feel like it, I can still attack Carthage.

Couple turns later, Nuku Hiva is also in my empire.



I'm tempted to keep this one because it's not in a particularly crappy location, but according to the advisor, making it a puppet will increase unhappiness by 8. It also doesn't seem to have any unique resources. I've got bigger fish to fry, as it were. So, goodbye, Nuku Hiva!



Uh-oh, that can't be good. Need to upgrade my arsenal as soon as possible. Good thing Scholasticism is vastly upgrading my science ratio. It's even higher than it was before, 70+ points of science from city-states.



…and even Caesar is letting us know we should upgrade. Sure thing, pal. You don't mind if we test out our new guns on you first, do you?



…sure, I'll forgive you. After all, I just sent a spy of my own to Carthage so I can see your army first hand.



Yeah, right. You'll probably keep building wonders and spying behind my back, pal. No dice. I can tell this is just a politely-worded "PLEEEEASE DON'T KILL ME!"



Excellent, this will help us stay policy-relevant. Cultural enhancers are useful for more than just people going for the cultural victory.



Ooh, interesting. We just got donated another unique unit type, the Keshik. They are powerful Mongolian horse archers. The very ones that Genghis Khan used to conquer his foes. You can use them to pepper cities with arrows, then retreat out of range. Handy, if we were still in the medieval era. We have yet to unlock the Renaissance or Industrial horse warrior. Soon.



Once a spy goes to a foreign city, it takes them a few turns to actually get settled in. If the spy is more experienced, this takes less time. I still want by best-ranked spy in Edinburgh, though.



Alright! Time for pirate ships!

Helsinki has fallen. Gustavus, any parting words from the Lion of the North?



Don't worry, pal. I have a very big pair of tweezers loaded with grapeshot if you ever become a thorn in my side again.



I'm planning on keeping Helsinki as a puppet because I could possibly annex it later. It could be a useful place to build a navy. Note how damn low my happiness is. Not good.



Spies automatically try to steal from other civilizations, but if they don't have any tech to go for, they establish surveillance and let you know if they're planning a sneak attack. They also let you see their city with your own eyes!



…Carthage has…a huge navy of Quinqueremes, apparently. A bigass navy of quinqueremes, more than we can see here in this screenshot. They're just an upgraded version of the weakest combat ship in the game, sure, but I'm going to need to build several pirate ships to take 'em on.



Ah, now this is what I was talking about. Let's see how much our happiness jumps when I take it!



Holy crap! That part where it says "From other sources" is the bonus happiness I'm getting for the gifted luxuries. This will help us stay afloat in the happiness game tremendously. If we had also gone down the right side of Commerce and gotten the policy that made all luxuries give you +6 happiness by default, this would be ludicrous. As it is, it is still totally acceptable.

We now have enough leeway to put the rest of our culture into Autocracy. Though we also have the option of finishing off Patronage and getting free Great People on occasion from our allies. We'll see.

State of the World:





The eastern peninsula is completely green, but Rome is putting out more shitty cities everywhere. We must consider very strongly the possibility of them being our worst nightmare if we don't take steps to be competitive. Soon as we're able, we're researching gatling guns and rifle men and rifle cavalry. Maybe we can get Carthage to fight them with us.